Between the Mountain and the City – Ikkyū Sōjun and the Blurred Border of Awakening

Abstract

Ikkyū Sōjun 一休宗純 (1394–1481) is undoubtedly one of the most famous monks in Japan today. In the modern period, he is mainly known as a young boy solving apparently impossible puzzles, often in unexpected and amusing ways. However, this Ikkyū, commonly known as “Ikkyū-san,” is only the final stage of an image that has drastically changed since the Middle Ages. This evolution has often been studied,1 and it is, indeed, a fascinating story leading to interesting questions about, for instance, the diffusion of Buddhism in Japanese society, the construction of idea of Zen, the relation between Zen and Japanese arts, etc. However, even if the numerous later images of Ikkyū are a rich and interesting subject of examination, it is not to say that the monk who actually lived in the Muromachi period does not deserve our attention. On the contrary, it is because the “real” Ikkyū managed to be admired by his contemporaries that rumors about him gradually transformed into legends. The downside of this celebrity is that the multiple images of Ikkyū affects the way we perceive the “historical Ikkyū,” and one must be very careful not to see the “real” Ikkyū through legends constructed after his death. Of course, as one may have already noticed, the notion of the “real” Ikkyū is itself highly problematic and deserves further analysis. However, in this article, we will simply consider the Ikkyū that we can know through the texts and other evidence that are widely thought to have been written by him, or reflect direct testimony about him. This is to say, mainly, his two poems collections, the Kyōun-shū 狂雲集 and the Jikai-shū 自戒集, and the biography written by his disciples soon after his death, the Ikkyū oshō nenpu 一休和尚年譜. Among these, the Kyōun-shū, which almost extensively records the poems Ikkyū wrote in classical Chinese during his life, is by far the most important collection for understanding him. It is not easy to read, and its interpretation is even more sensitive, as showed by the fact that a comprehensive explanation of the collecBetween the Mountain and the City – Ikkyū Sōjun and the Blurred Border of Awakening